turn back time (new beginnings)
by falling winter roses
Summary: i'm turning into someone who i'm not / bellatrix lestrange and regrets


**a/n: how i envisioned this: a progression of who bellatrix is: from bella black, to bellatrix black, to bellatrix lestrange. who she wanted to be, her wrongs, her rights, her regrets.**

 **enjoy, i guess.**

 **.**

 _ **chaser 1, qlfc forum, puddlemere united**_

 _ **season six, round eleven**_

 _ **main prompt:**_ **Buffy the Vampire Slayer**

 _ **optional prompts:**_

 **2.** _ **(dialogue)**_ " **Stay out of my room!"**

 **5.** _ **(object)**_ **a torn dress**

 **7.** _ **(word)**_ **fatal**

 **word count: 2756**

 **.**

"Stay _out_ of my room!" she cried, slamming herself against the door and sliding down to the emerald green carpeted floor. There was pounding on the other side, a muttered spell, and Bellatrix Black sobbed as the door was forced open.

"Get out, get out, get _OUT!"_ she screamed, slamming the door, taking out her wand and locking it using Snape's little spell. What did she care? What did she even care anymore? Who cared if the Ministry came and kicked her out of Hogwarts, locked her up for her underage magic. Who even cared?

"I thought you wanted to be one of us," came the voice, a hissing whisper. "You cannot escape your blood, little baby Bella. You cannot escape your destiny."

Bella sobbed even harder. "I don't, I can't, get out, get _out!"_ Her dress was in tatters, the cream-colored lace twisted into the black fabric. Splotches of red wine and what looked like blood (and probably was) were scattered across the torn folds.

Completely overcome, she just lay her head on in her arms and cried until, somehow, the sheer fatigue of everything that had happened caught up to her, and she fell asleep.

/

 _24 hours earlier_

Bella laughed and spun around in front of the mirror. "Don't I just look _amazing,_ Ci?" The two sisters were holed up in Bella's room. Bella trying out her outfit for the next night, Cissa helping her as a second judge of her outfit, the two sisters were giggling up a storm in the dimly lighted, but brightly furnished, room.

"You do," Cissa grinned. The two sisters might've seemed the image of pureblood supremacy, but Bella had never wanted to be one of them. She'd snuck out at night almost every single day since she was 7, after she'd found that somehow she was able to stay up with no fatigue because of what she had deemed to be accidental magic. The sad thing was, it hadn't even been that hard to sneak out. It wasn't like their parents paid them much attention unless they were being improper in front of _company._

Muggles were refreshing, Bella thought. They weren't all closed off and refined and stupidly, ridiculously _proper._ They didn't have arranged marriages and discrimination (well, they used to, but they were so much better) against anyone who wasn't of that social norm.

Bella's late night outings were the best parts of her life. The part of her life where she was really _alive._ Going to movies, shows, bars, parties. Spending time with Cissa.

Bella had told herself that yes, she was living on the edge. Any moment she could be caught, she could be killed and cruciatused until she was nearly insane.

But Bella had sworn to herself that she would be strong. She would live her life, and when it came to the point where she was expected to get a proper, dark, pureblood marriage, she would run.

Yes, she might die. Her parents, or other dark wizards, might kill her. But when Bella died, she wanted to have no regrets.

She'd tried to see if Andromeda wanted in on this fascinating world of lights and laughter. But Andie had stuck up her nose at it all. She was off being all elegant and proper, having tea, working on her studies.

Pah. Proper her arse, Bella thought. Andie was just putting on her mask for a few years longer, until she could marry that Muggleborn Ted Tonks and run off with him.

The three had been so close when they were young. Three tight knit sisters, protecting each other against the raised voices of their parents and the dark history and evil magic that surrounded them on all sides.

Bella had protected fair Cissa from the eyes of the other boys, and protected Andie from the disapproving looks she got from her parents and housemates when she did something not certainly Slytherin-like. Cissa may have been the fairest of the three, and Bella the darkest, but Andie was fairest in nature. Bella had always had a dark sense of freedom and rebelliousness in her, and Cissa had always been a soft, loving sister.

They were all just keeping up their masks, Bella thought. Her, Cissa, Andie. Three girls with their masks held high in their proper little Black family. Three perfect little princesses, full of lies and darkness.

It was all so stupid, she thought sometimes. The way they all kept their mouths closed, glaring at each other, primly speaking to a mother with poorly concealed bruises. How they snuck out after having evening tea, coming back to sit up straight in elegant dress robes at the table.

But it was the only way of life she had ever known.

/

Bella was dressed in a black dress, studded with amethyst, with gold swirls curling along the length of both the full dress and its sleeves. It had drawn her the moment she first entered the Muggle shop. The black universe studded with sparkling purple stars, swirling with golden galaxies and constellations. It made her feel free, like something bigger than herself.

Her face was magically altered lest someone know her and reveal who she truly was. Her parents could be anywhere, could know anything. Bella lived on the edge of who she was.

Narcissa stood by her side. Cissa had always doted on her oldest sister, the protective young woman who had always had that hard mask on her face, but loved and protected her sisters with a fiery passion.

Bella laughed, spinning her sister around. "Now be safe, Ci, and don't drink too much," she advised. This was the first time Bella had brought Cissa to one of the larger parties, with alcohol and private rooms and such. "Don't go off with anyone. I'm watching you if you need any—"

Cissa groaned, playfully pushing away from her older sister. "Ah, I'll be fine, sis. You go off with people all the time. I'll be fine."

And with that, she disappeared into the crowd.

Bella told herself that yes, Cissa would be fine. She was a smart girl, she was a Black, after all. Cissa wouldn't go off with anyone. She wouldn't get that drunk. Cissa would be fine.

But a feeling of dread couldn't leave Bella alone.

Bella shook her head and headed to the bar, dashing a teasing smile at the man next to her.

"Is this seat taken?"

He looked her up and down, his eyes filling with want. "No."

Bella smiled, pushing away her feeling of worry. "Good."

/

Bella looked behind her one last time, freshly made up and washed after being scuffed up by a rough few hours, before closing the door to the room and heading back to the hubbub of the party, which was mostly dying down.

She scanned the crowd for her sister's startling black streaked blonde hair, Cissa's stand-out sleek azure dress, and saw only the common, swirling colors of black and silver, the two most trendy colors in the Muggle world these days.

 _No._

Bella whipped around and sprinted down the hallway of rooms, banging into each one, not caring what or who she saw.

 _Cissa Cissa Cissa._ She had to find Cissa. She needed to find Cissa.

Bella reached the end of a hallway full of intermingling voices.

Cissa's wasn't any of them.

Bella shook her head.

No. She would find her sister.

She had to.

/

Something that Bella had taught Cissa and Andie to do from a young age was never to let your guard down. Bella didn't follow this rule now, wildly searching, searching, searching.

She had heard before of the Patronus messenger. She'd sent one before in her fourth year, in a wild air of joy when Andie, the one of the three sisters that had always stuck out in personality, had been sorted into Slytherin. Andie had been safe, for another year.

But now, in this wild haze of guilt and worry and pain, there was no way that she would be able to summon that blinding silver bird.

Bella couldn't submit to letting her parents find Cissa. But soon, the sun would rise, and maybe Cissa was okay, Bella told herself. Maybe she had willingly gone off with someone for a night at their house or something.

Maybe she was fine.

But as Bella headed home, pangs of guilt filled her chest, and it took everything in her not to turn around and search for Cissa—because if Bella didn't head home, they both would be dead anyway.

/

"She's at Diagon Alley," Bella said as her sleepy-looking mother entered the dining room.

"Huh?" Druella asked.

Bella and Andie sat at the table, the head seat empty with an empty plate in front of it, their father having left for work at the Ministry early in the morning.

"Cissa," Bella clarified. "She's gone at Diagon Alley. Left early this morning to get some writing supplies or something."

Their mother, Druella nodded and flicked her wand to send a plate towards them. Andie sent Bella a questioning glance, then looked back down at her breakfast, which Druella had made the night before and set under a Heating Charm to last through the night.

Bella looked at her, her eyes telling Andie not to say anything, a dark urgency clearly in her dark midnight-colored eyes.

Andie didn't go with her sisters often, but the three of them always kept each other's secrets, and so Andie nodded.

Bella barely held herself from letting out a sigh of relief.

/

Again that night, Bella went out searching for Cissa. She couldn't evade her needling parents for much longer. She needed more time.

If only she had a Time-Turner, Bella thought. But there was no way she'd be able to get one.

She couldn't cave, Bella knew.

She couldn't.

Little did she know what she'd find when she got home.

Bella climbed up and through her window, and as she closed her window and curtains, she heard something from downstairs. Crying, muttered spells, whimpers of pain.

Bella's heart began to thump in her chest, and a dizzying feeling came over her as she slammed open the door and practically ran down the stairs.

And there she was.

A bleeding, crying, bruised Cissa, blotchy and red with bruises all over her, her dress torn and barely covering her body. An emotional and crying Druella was trying to cast successful Episkey spells, and a stern-faced Cygnus off to the side watched.

Bella stood in the doorway, mouth open, eyes wide, completely and utterly horrified. She never should've let Cissa go that night.

A horrified whimper escaped her lips and Bella dropped down beside her sister. Cissa looked at her, eyes full of pain, and Bella felt the guilt rise like a terrible wave inside of her. She was still wearing her dress for that evening, a black dress with cream-colored lace dotting the silken folds, splotched with red wine that she had spilled in her hurry to get home.

"Oh, Ci, I'm so so sorry," she whispered. Cissa shook her head, a grief filling her eyes, and Bella knew instantly that she was forgiven. Of course she was.

But she'd have hell to pay for this.

It was all her fault, she knew, as her father turned to her, a dark glint in his eyes.

"Bellatrix, I thought you were better than this," he said. His eyes were on her dress, and he took another step towards her.

Bella tried to shut out the words. They were soft and gentle-like, but the sharp stab of what he actually said was no match for the gentle tone he said them with.

And this time, Bella Black couldn't take it. She couldn't take the guilt, the lies, the confines of her family.

Bellatrix could, though. Bellatrix Black was cold, snarling, intelligent. A catlike, sly witch with a cunning intelligence and a love for paining blood traitors and those traitorous Mudbloods.

Bellatrix Black did not speak to her sister Andromeda unless it was absolutely necessary. She didn't sneak out to Muggle parties at night, get drunk, go off with some stranger.

Back at school, Bellatrix was feared, respected, but never loved. Her sisters looked at her with a barely-concealed fear.

And Bellatrix was full of pain. Pain that she hid away, her old self, who she truly wished she was. But Bellatrix told herself that Bella was gone. Bella Black would never be seen again.

Bellatrix Black was not weak.

Not anymore.

/

Bellatrix Black turned into Bellatrix Lestrange, a cold, half-insane woman. Dark and damaged from her guilt and her father's words, she tortured and killed, screaming with some cold insane laughter as she tore those stupid Mudbloods. She harbored a terrible resentment against them, not for their supposedly dirty blood like she pretended, but for being stupid and naive and making the purebloods hate them. Her simple gaze was fatal. She looked at a Mudblood, anyone who disagreed with her, and she had her wand at their neck in an instant.

But deep down, all she could hear was the whimpers of Cissa on that terrible night, how quiet and trembling her words had been for so many months afterward. Neither of them had ever been the same. Every time she met her sister at old Malfoy Manor, that old pang of guilt ran through her.

She closed the door on her old self. She could be okay with this, she tells herself, even as she almost breaks every time she casts the Killing Curse, every time she sees that flash of green light hit someone in the middle of a breath.

Bellatrix Lestrange threw away her life, not because she was loyal to the Dark Lord, but because she knew that being let go wasn't worth it. She knew she deserved to be in Azkaban for what she had let happen to her sister all those years ago.

When it came time to, she ran. Bellatrix joined Voldemort again because it was the only thing she could do. She told herself that if she tried, she could really live this life, not lie about it anymore. She fell deeper and deeper into her fantasy, into the world of fake thoughts and memories and beliefs she had made herself.

Bellatrix Lestrange killed her cousin. The boy she had admired all those years ago for being brave enough to stand against his parents, to actually go into Gryffindor.

When Sirius Black fell into the veil, and Harry Potter tried to torture her, Bellatrix mocked him, this little boy who thought he had suffered much. In her mind, he was a naive little boy. He thought he knew suffering? He had no idea of the poisoned, fatal childhood Bellatrix had had.

Bellatrix Lestrange bore a single child. The only thing she could think as Delphini was born was how she would regret bearing this child, this poor little girl that would grow up without good parents, just like she had grown up.

At the end, there was a look of shock on her face as Molly Weasley hit her with the spell that ended her lie. Bellatrix had never thought it would end like this.

But as she falls through the gap between life and death, she feels no different than before. All her regrets are still with her. All the old memories she had locked away.

And oh, yes, Bellatrix remembers. She remembers her old days, her days as a young girl. A protective guardian angel of her two sisters, the two people she loved most in the whole, wide world.

She remembers how she had wanted to be, dying early, with no regrets, only love and freedom and rebelliousness in her young soul.

There are still regrets there.

Bellatrix closes her eyes. She stops wishing that she could go back. She accepts who she is, what she has done. She is a killer, a murderer, but what happened to her, to Cissa, to Andie, and what would happen to Delphini… none of that is her fault.

Bellatrix Lestrange was never a Lestrange. She never loved her husband. She barely knew him, after all those years of marriage and being Death Eaters together. She is not Bella Black, that little girl who thought she could be anything, do anything. She is not the girl with the torn dress, nor the woman with the Dark Mark she was so proud of.

Bellatrix Black opens her eyes and steps into a new beginning.


End file.
